"Operation Cyclone was one of the longest and most expensive covert CIA operations ever undertaken;funding began with $20–30 million per year in 1980 and rose to $630 million per year in 1987.

Funding continued after 1989 as the Mujahideen battled the forces of Mohammad Najibullah's PDPA during the Civil war in Afghanistan (1989–1992).

The program leaned heavily towards supporting militant Islamic groups that were favored by neighboring Pakistan, rather than other, less ideological Afghan resistance groups that had also been fighting the Marxist-oriented Democratic Republic of Afghanistan regime since before the Soviet intervention. "

"Raphel held a variety of positions throughout his career until his death in 1988. He was mainly a politician and diplomat for the US Government.

In 1979, Raphel was a key member of the State Department's Special Operations Group set up to free the American hostages seized by Iranian militants at the United States Embassy in Teheran."

So, this man is a Democrat.

It goes on:

"Raphel was nominated by President Ronald Reagan and succeeded Dean Roesch Hinton as US Ambassador to Pakistan in January 1987."

Nationalistic Pakistani Officials Insisted That Their Country had an "Unfettered Right to do what It Wishes"

Washington, D.C., December 21, 2010 - The Wikileaks database of purloined State Department cable traffic includes revelations, published in the Washington Post and the New York Times about tensions in U.S.-Pakistan relations on key nuclear issues, including the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and the disposition of a stockpile of weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium. (Note 1) These frictions are not surprising because the Pakistani nuclear weapons program has been a source of anxiety for U.S. policymakers, since the late 1970s, when they discovered that Pakistani metallurgist A.Q. Khan had stolen blueprints for a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment facility. U.S. officials were alarmed that a nuclear Pakistan would bring greater instability to South Asia; years later, the rise of the Pakistani Taliban produced concerns about the nuclear stockpile's vulnerability to terrorists. Since 2002-2004 the discovery that the A.Q. Khan's nuclear supply network had spread nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea, and elsewhere raised apprehensions even more. (Note 2) Last week, before the Wikileaks revelations, the recently disclosed North Korean gas centrifuge uranium enrichment plant raised questions about the proliferation of sensitive nuclear technology by the Khan network. (Note 3)

Recently declassified U.S. government documents from the Jimmy Carter administration published today by the National Security Archive shed light on the critical period when Washington discovered that Pakistan, a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] hold-out, had acquired key elements of a nuclear weapons capability. Once in power, the Carter administration tried to do what its predecessor, the Ford administration, had done: discourage the Pakistani nuclear program, but the CIA and the State Department discovered belatedly in 1978 that Islamabad was moving quickly to build a gas centrifuge plant, thanks to "dual use" technology acquired by Khan and his network. The documents further disclose the U.S. government's complex but unsuccessful efforts to convince Pakistan to turn off the gas centrifuge project. Besides exerting direct pressure first on President Zulkifar Ali Bhutto and then on military dictator General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Washington lobbied key allies and China to induce them to pressurize Islamabad, but also to cooperate by halting the sale of sensitive technology to Pakistan.

Declassified government documents show that the Carter administration recognized that export controls by industrial countries could not sufficiently disrupt Pakistan's secret purchases of uranium enrichment technology, so it tried combinations of diplomatic pressure and blandishments to dissuade the Pakistanis and to induce them to reach an understanding with India. Washington's efforts met with strong resistance from top Pakistani officials; seeing a nuclear capability as a matter of national survival, they argued that Pakistan had an "unfettered right" to develop nuclear technology. The Indians were also not interested in a deal. Senior US officials recognized that the prospects of stopping the Indian or the Pakistani nuclear programs were "poor"; within months arms controller were "scratching their heads" over how to tackle the problem.

Among the disclosures in the documents:

▪ U.S. requests during mid-1978 by U.S. diplomats for assurances that Pakistan would not use reprocessing technology to produce plutonium led foreign minister Agha Shahi's to insist that was a "demand that no country would accept" and that Pakistan "has the unfettered right to do what it wishes."

▪ By November 1978, U.S. government officials, aware that Pakistan was purchasing technology for a gas centrifuge enrichment facility, were developing proposals aimed at "inhibiting Pakistan" from making progress toward developing a nuclear capability.

▪ By January 1979, U.S. intelligence estimated that Pakistan was reaching the point where it "may soon acquire all the essential components" for a gas centrifuge plant.

▪ Also in January 1979, U.S. intelligence estimated that Pakistani would have a "single device" (plutonium) by 1982 and test a weapon using highly-enriched uranium [HEU] by 1983, although 1984 was "more likely".

▪ On 3 March 1979, Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher spoke in "tough terms" with General Zia and Foreign Minister Shahi; the latter claimed that the U.S. was making an "ultimatum."

▪ On 23 March 1979, senior level State Department officials suggested to Secretary of State Vance possible measures to help make the "best combination" of carrots and sticks to constrain the Pakistani nuclear program; nevertheless, "prospects [were] poor" for realizing that goal.

▪ The decision in April 1979 to cut off aid to Pakistan because of its uranium enrichment program worried State Department officials, who believed that a nuclear Pakistan would be a "new and dangerous element of instability," but they wanted to maintain good relations with that country, a "moderate state" in an unstable region.

▪ During the spring of 1979, when Washington made unsuccessful attempts to frame a regional solution involving "mutual restraint" by India and Pakistan of their nuclear activities, Indian prime minister Morarji Desai declared that "if he discovered that Pakistan was ready to test a bomb or if it exploded one, he would act at [once] 'to smash it.'"

▪ In July 19799, CIA analysts speculated that the Pakistani nuclear program might receive funding from Islamic countries, including Libya, and that Pakistani might engage in nuclear cooperation, even share nuclear technology, with Saudi Arabia, Libya or Iraq.

▪ By September 1979 officials at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency said that "most of us are scratching our heads" about what to do about the Pakistani nuclear program.

▪ In November 1979, ambassador Gerard C. Smith reported that when meeting with senior British, French, Dutch, and West German officials to encourage them to take tougher positions on the Pakistani nuclear program, he found "little enthusiasm … to emulate our position."

▪ In the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when improving relations with Pakistan became a top priority for Washington, according to CIA analysts, Pakistani officials believed that Washington was "reconciled to a Pakistani nuclear weapons capability."

Like the Israeli bomb, the Pakistan case illustrates how difficult it is to prevent a determined country, especially an ally, from acquiring and using nuclear weapons technology. It also illustrates the complexity and difficulty of nuclear proliferation diplomacy: other political and strategic priorities can and do trump nonproliferation objectives. The documents also shed light on a familiar problem: a US-Pakistan relationship that has been rife with suspicions and tensions, largely because of Washington's uneasy balancing act between India and Pakistan, two countries with strong mutual antagonisms, a problem that was aggravated during the Cold War by concerns about Soviet influence in the region. (Note 4)

The Pakistani nuclear issue was on Jimmy Carter's agenda when he became president in early 1977 because he brought a significant commitment to reducing nuclear armaments and to checking nuclear proliferation. His initial, though unrealized goal, of deep cuts of strategic nuclear forces, and his support for the comprehensive test ban treaty were of a piece with his support for the long-term abolition of nuclear weapons, suggesting that his concerns about proliferation were not the usual double standard of "what's good for us is bad for you." Carter made the danger of nuclear proliferation one of his campaign themes and during his presidency government agencies and Congress tightened up controls over nuclear exports; this led to the 1978 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, whose unilateral features were controversial with some allies, especially Japan and West Germany. The administration also engaged in a protracted, but generally successful, attempt to curb the Taiwanese nuclear weapons programs, although the effort to tackle South Africa's met with less short-term success. Another tough challenge was a West German contract to sell uranium enrichment and reprocessing plants to Brazil, although technical problems would ultimately undercut the agreement. (Note 5)

Pakistan's successful drive for a nuclear arsenal was perhaps the most significant frustration for the Carter administration's nonproliferation policy. Five years before Carter's inauguration, following Pakistan's defeat in the 1971 war with India, President Bhutto made a secret decision to seek nuclear weapons which he followed up in 1973 with negotiations to buy a nuclear reprocessing facility (used for producing plutonium) from a French firm. (Note 6) Apparently U.S. intelligence did not seriously examine the prospects for a Pakistani bomb until after India's May 1974 "peaceful nuclear explosion." In the following months, the authors of Special National Intelligence Estimate [SNIE] NIE 4-1-74, "Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," expected Pakistan to "press ahead" with a nuclear weapons program, which they projected as "far inferior to its prime rival, India, in terms of nuclear technology." (Note 7) In August 1974, US intelligence estimated that Pakistan would not have nuclear weapons before 1980 and only as long as "extensive foreign assistance" was available. Over a year later, however, a new prediction emerged: that Pakistan could produce a plutonium–fueled weapon as early as 1978, as long as it had access to a reprocessing plant.

By 1978 Pakistan did not have a reprocessing plant or the bomb. Nevertheless, that same year a pattern of suspicious purchases detected by British customs officials led to the discovery that Pakistan was secretly acquiring technology to produce highly-enriched uranium as an alternative path to building the bomb. The "extensive foreign assistance" postulated by the SNIE turned out to be the theft of plans for a gas centrifuge enrichment technology from the Uranium Enrichment Corporation [URENCO] in the Netherlands. The perpetrator was metallurgist Abdul Q. Khan who founded a worldwide network to acquire sensitive technology for his country's nuclear project and later for providing nuclear technology to Pakistan's friends and customers. (Note 8)

Recent studies of the U.S.–Pakistan nuclear relationship see moments during the mid-to-late 1970s when it may have been possible to bring the Pakistani program to a halt by preventing Khan from acquiring sensitive technology. The Dutch may have had the best chance in 1975 when they suspected that Khan was a spy; whether the U.S. and British governments had similar opportunities to nip the Pakistani nuclear effort in the bud remains a matter of debate. (Note 9) For example, when British officials learned that Khan and his associates were trying to purchase high frequency electrical inverters needed to run centrifuges, they acted too late to stop the Pakistani from acquiring this technology, which they soon learned how to copy and manufacture. So far declassified documents do not shed light on when the British told the U.S. government about this development and how Washington initially reacted to it, or what else U.S. intelligence may have been learning from other sources. In any event, some of the documents in this collection suggest that the U.S. intelligence establishment may have had a mindset that prevented it from acquiring, or looking for, timely intelligence about the Pakistani secret enrichment program.

A significant problem was U.S. intelligence's assumption during 1974-1978 that Pakistan would take the plutonium route for producing the bomb. SNIE 4-1-74, "Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," (published by the National Security Archive in January 2008) and two documents in this collection, a "Memorandum to Holders" of SNIE 4-1-74 and a 1978 CIA report, shed some light on the former assumption. Both documents give virtually exclusive emphasis to the plutonium route for acquiring the fissile material required for building the bomb. Thus, intelligence analysts assumed that countries like Pakistan would try to try to acquire reprocessing technology so that they could chemically extract plutonium from the spent fuel rods taken from nuclear power reactors. This was a reasonable premise because plutonium has played a central role in modern nuclear arsenals. Nevertheless, during the early 1960s, U.S. intelligence had assumed that China would first build and test a plutonium weapon, but as it turned out, Beijing found it more expedient to produce highly-enriched uranium for the nuclear device which it tested in October 1964. This surprised Washington, but if the intelligence community conducted any postmortems, they did not yield long-lasting lessons. (Note 10)

That Pakistan could try to acquire and develop advanced gas centrifuge enrichment technology was not an element in intelligence analysis. While the authors of SNIE 4-1-74 recognized the possibility that interested nations could secretly undertake a gas centrifuge enrichment program for producing highly-enriched uranium, they posited that it was "highly unlikely" that it could be undertaken "without our getting some indications of it." The possibility that "indications" might come too late was not discussed, but the tight secrecy controls over the gas centrifuge technique may have created a certain confidence that it would not leak out. Thus, the "Memorandum to Holders" did not include any discussion of what it would require for a country to build a gas centrifuge plant by purchasing "dual use" or "gray area" technology; no doubt its authors assumed that poor countries such as Pakistan were unlikely to pull off such a stunt. Indeed, according to some accounts, U.S. intelligence analysts dismissed Pakistan's competence to take the enrichment route. (Note 11) Whether such thinking may have made U.S. intelligence somewhat less watchful when Khan and his associates were creating their network will require more information than is presently available.

So far no U.S. government reports on the actual discovery of the enrichment program and the Khan network have emerged, although a few declassified CIA items in this collection include estimates how far Pakistan could go with the stolen technology. Most of the documents published today reflect the thinking of State Department officials— ambassadors and assistant secretaries--who worried about the Pakistani bomb, but were less than wholehearted supporters of a rigorous nuclear nonproliferation agenda because it might interfere with securing Pakistan's cooperation on regional issues. This collection does not tap the resources of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, but several documents at the National Security Council-level provide insight into high-level policy debates and strategy discussions. A few items provide some insight into President Carter's thinking because they include his observations in handwritten marginalia (see documents 2 and 36). No documents from the files of the former Arms Control and Disarmament Agency are yet available, although a few forceful memoranda by special ambassador on nonproliferation Gerard C. Smith may have dovetailed with ACDA views.

Part of the interactive feature designed to support the special report "Unleashing the Nuclear Watchdog: Strengthening and Reform of the IAEA," this video features: Ashok Kapur, (Distinguished Professor Emeritus) University of Waterloo; and Matthew Bunn, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. http://interactive.cigionline.org/iaea/

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International was the funding conduit and money laundering operation for (amongst other things) the Mujaheddin Support Effort, the CIA Jihadi training camps built in Afghanistan by the Saudi Binladen Group (some destroyed by the Missile strikes of 1998), all of Oliver North's Iran Contra doings in his "Off the Shelf Enterprise", General Noreiega, Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel, the October Surprise, PROMIS Software, the Mena Connection, the post-Soviet Mujahiden trraining effort, (GLADIO-B), the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing (2/26) and much more besides.

Most crucially, in concert with PROMIS Software, BCCI was the covert mechanism by which then-Vice President Bush and the Kissingerites such as Al Haig could covertly aid and supply the Islamic Republic of Pakistan under Zia al-Huq with technology, technical assistantce and materiel for the Pakistani nuclear weapons program behind the backs of the Reagan White House.

NOTE: There was NO US Ambassador to Iran when the US Embassy was seized in November 1979.

President Carter FIRED William Sullivan in March 1979 for "Serial Insubordination".

His Immediate Predecessor in-post was Former Director of Central Intelligence Mr. Richard Helms; who puppet-mastered The Year of Watergate from Tehran.

Both were in the Heroin Trade in Laos and Iran up to their necks.

William H. Sullivan, a career diplomat who spent much of the 1960s and 1970s in volatile parts of the world — notably Laos, where he oversaw a secret bombing campaign, and Iran, where he was the last United States ambassador before militants took embassy employees hostage in November 1979 — died on Oct. 11 in Washington. He was 90.

William E. Sauro/The New York Times

After being held prisoner, Mr. Sullivan became president of the American Assembly.

He had been ill and in hospice care for many months, said his daughter Anne Sullivan, who confirmed the death.

Mr. Sullivan, a Navy gunnery officer in World War II whose ship, the U.S.S. Hambleton, was involved in the invasion of Normandy and the surrender of Japan, joined the Foreign Service in 1947 and spent the next several years moving through increasingly prominent State Department posts in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

He worked under Ambassador Clare Boothe Luce in Rome. He was a close aide to the diplomat W. Averell Harriman during the Cuban missile crisis and talks with the Soviet Union about limits on nuclear testing. In 1973, he was a top adviser to Henry A. Kissinger during the Paris Peace Accords, which led to the United States’ withdrawal of troops from Vietnam.

These roles were in addition to his prominent and complicated turns as an ambassador in politically charged areas — first in Laos, then in the Philippines and, finally, in Iran. He was appointed by presidents of both parties.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson named Mr. Sullivan ambassador to Laos as tensions with neighboring Vietnam were rising there. Though Mr. Sullivan was a civilian, he oversaw a covert bombing campaign in Laos that targeted North Vietnamese forces traveling the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The bombings were conducted by the C.I.A., and Mr. Sullivan initially concealed them even from visiting members of Congress.

When lawmakers learned of the bombings in 1969, many questioned whether Mr. Sullivan and the executive branch had the authority and expertise to carry them out. An aid worker in Laos, Ronald J. Rickenbach, told a Senate subcommittee that many of the attacks appeared to be “indiscriminate bombing of population centers.”

Mr. Sullivan, who was called numerous times to testify before Congress, defended the covert bombings and insisted that his knowledge of Laos allowed him to monitor them closely and to minimize civilian casualties. He later said that civilian deaths rose after the military took control of the bombing campaign.

Mr. Sullivan left Laos in 1969 and spent much of the early ’70s as the deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. He worked closely with Mr. Kissinger in lengthy negotiations with North Vietnam that produced the Paris accords.

Even as Mr. Kissinger praised him for his assistance in Paris, it was disclosed that Mr. Sullivan had been one of 13 government officials and four journalists whose phones were wiretapped from 1969 to 1971 with the approval of President Richard M. Nixon. The stated goal was to halt leaks to the news media. Mr. Kissinger provided the list of those to be tapped; he later said that he did so only to prove that officials were not leaking information.

Also in 1973, President Nixon appointed Mr. Sullivan ambassador to the Philippines, where he negotiated with the government of President Ferdinand E. Marcos to handle the flow of refugees fleeing Vietnam and, later, to close two military bases. Four years later, in a move Mr. Sullivan said surprised him given his extensive experience in Southeast Asia, President Jimmy Carter named him ambassador to Iran. Within months after his arrival, a rebellion began growing against the government of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, whom the United States supported.

By the fall of 1978, debate was raging within the Carter administration over what to do about the volatile situation. Mr. Sullivan clashed with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the president’s national security adviser, and complained that the administration was unresponsive to his repeated requests for clear instructions. Some criticized Mr. Sullivan for not seeing the seriousness of the threat to the shah, and thus to American political interests in the country. He argued later that the shah could have preserved power in a new coalition had the White House been more responsive.

In February 1979, a month after the shah had fled, the United States Embassy in Iran was briefly overtaken by Iranian militants, and Mr. Sullivan and several other Americans were taken prisoner. The Iranian government quickly freed them, but the episode prompted Mr. Sullivan to begin reducing the number of United States government employees in Iran, to fewer than 100 from more than 1,000.

Mr. Sullivan’s exchanges with the White House became increasingly bitter. In a 1981 memoir, “Mission to Iran,” he recalled receiving “a most unpleasant and abrasive cable” that “contained an unacceptable aspersion upon my loyalty.”

“When I was told by telephone from the State Department that the insulting message had originated at the White House,” he wrote, “I thought that I no longer had a useful function to perform on behalf of the president in Tehran.”

He left Iran that spring and retired from government service later that year. On Nov. 4, 1979, Iranian militants scaled the walls of the United States Embassy compound and took 66 Americans hostage, holding 52 of them until January 1981. The United States has not had an ambassador in Iran since Mr. Sullivan left.

William Healy Sullivan was born on Oct. 12, 1922, in Cranston, R.I. His father, Joseph, was a dental surgeon, and his mother, the former Sabina Foley, was a schoolteacher. He received his undergraduate degree from Brown University and, in 1947, a master’s degree in international law and diplomacy jointly from Harvard and the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

From 1979 to 1986, Mr. Sullivan was president of the American Assembly, a public affairs forum at Columbia University. After 1986, he served on the boards of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and other organizations.

In addition to his daughter Anne, his survivors include three other children, John, Mark and Peggy Sullivan, and six grandchildren. His wife of 62 years, the former Marie Johnson, died in 2010.

The October Surprise in Context

" The philosophical divide within the U.S. National Security establishment, especially the CIA, became quite serious in the aftermath of Watergate. To make matters worse, the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, his campaign promise to clean the "cowboy" elements out of the Central Intelligence Agency and his "human rights" policies alarmed the faction of the CIA loyal to George Bush. Bush was CIA director under Richard Nixon. Finally, the firing of CIA Director George Bush by Carter, and the subsequent "Halloween Massacre" in which Carter fired over 800 CIA covert operatives in 1977, angered the "cowboys" beyond all measure. That was Carter's October surprise, 800 firings on Halloween 1977.

Bush and his CIA coverts were well aware of the Shah's terminal cancer, unknown to President Carter. The team had an elaborate vested interest to protect. They were determined to keep Iran intact and communist-free and put George Bush in the White House.

SEQUENCE OF EVENTS

Hence, the Islamic Fundamentalists were the only viable choice through which the Bush covert team could implement its own private foreign policy. The results: the birth of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the fall of President Carter, and the emergence of something called the "New World Order." Mansoor's documents show step-by-step events:

1. In 1974, the Shah of Iran was diagnosed with cancer.

2. In 1975, former CIA director, and the U.S. Ambassador to Iran, Richard Helms learned of the Shah's cancer through the Shah's closest confidant, General Hossein Fardoust. The Shah, Helms and Fardoust had been close personal friends since their school days together in Switzerland during the 1930s.

3. On November 4, 1976, concurrent with Jimmy Carter's election as President, CIA Director George Bush issued a secret memo to the U.S. Ambassador in Iran, Richard Helms, asking:

"Have there been any changes in the personality pattern of the Shah; what are their implication pattern for political behavior? Identification of top military officers that most likely play key roles in any transference of power if the Shah were killed...who will be the leading actors? How will the Shah's pet projects, including the economic development program, be effected by his departure?"

4. By July 1977, anticipating trouble ahead, the Bush covert team issued preliminary script for the transition of power in Iran. According to John D. Stemple, a CIA analyst and Deputy Chief Political officer of the U.S. Embassy in Iran,

"A ten page analysis of the opposition written by the embassy's political section in July 1977 correctly identified Bakhiar, Bazargan, Khomeini and Behesti as major actors in the drama that begin unfolding a year later."

5. Contrary to this analysis, in August 1977, the "official wing" of the CIA fed President Carter a 60-page Study on Iran which concluded:

"The Shah will be an active participant in Iranian life well into the 1980s...and there will be no radical changes in Iranian political behavior in the near future."

6. On October 31, 1977, president Carter made good on his campaign promise to clean the "cowboys" out of the CIA. He fired over 800 covert operatives from the Agency, many of whom were loyal to George Bush. Carter's presidency split the CIA. It produced in them, among whom were "many well-trained in political warfare, a concerted will for revenge." By the end of the 1970s many of these special covert operatives had allied themselves with George Bush's candidacy, and later with Ronald Reagan's presidential campaign.

7. On November 15, the Shah of Iran visited Washington, D.C. Carter toasted his guest, "If ever there was a country which has blossomed forth under enlightened leadership, it would be the ancient empire of Persia."

8. On November 23, Ayatollah Khomeini's elder son, Haji Mustafa, died mysteriously in Najaf, Iraq. According to professor Hamid Algar, he was "assassinated by the Shah's U.S.-instituted security police SAVAK...the tragedy inflamed the public in Iran." Ayatollah Khomeini placed an advertisement in the French Newspaper Le Monde which read: "thanking people for condolences that had been sent of the murder of his son". He also "appealed to the army to liberate Iran, and to the intellectuals and all good Muslims to continue their criticism of the Shah".

9. December 31, 1977, Carter visited the Shah in Iran. He toasted the Shah for maintaining Iran as "an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world." Ironically, that so-called stability evaporated before the champagne lost its fizz.

10. On January 7, 1978, an insidious article entitled Iran and the Red and Black Colonialism, appeared in the Iranian daily newspaper Ettela'at. It castigated the exiled Khomeini, and produced a massive protest riot in the Holy City of Qum the next day. The clergy had little choice but to rally to Khomeini's defense. The Qum incident shifted many of the clergy from a position of support for the Shah's monarchy to an active opposition. That "dirty trick" perpetuated by General Fardoust was the trigger that sparked Islamic movement participating in the anti-Shah democratic Revolution. John D. Stempel, characterized Fardoust's importance to the Alliance: "it is hard to over estimated the value of having a mole in the inner circle of the Shah."

11. On February 3, a confidential communiqué from the U.S. Embassy clearly reflected the vision of the Alliance: "Though based on incomplete evidence, our best assessment to date is that the Shia Islamic movement dominated by Ayatollah Khomeini is far better organized, enlighten and able to resist Communism than its detractors would lead us to believe. It is rooted in the Iranian people more than any western ideology, including Communism."

12. April 1978, Le Monde "identified Khomeini's Liberation Movement of Iran as the most significant force in the opposition followed by the Shi'ite Islam joins the reformist of progressive critics of the Shah on the same ground. In fact, this analysis was contrary to what Mohaammad Tavassoli, leader of the Liberation Movement of Iran, expressed to John D. Stempel on August 21, 1978: "The nationalist movement in Iran lacks a popular base. The choice is between Islam and Communism...close ties between the Liberation Movement of Iran and the religious movement was necessary. Iran was becoming split by Marxist and the religious."

13. On April 26, the confidential minutes of the U. S. Embassy Country team meeting welcomed Bush, Reagan and Thatcher.

14. On May 6, Le Monde became the first western newspaper to interview Khomeini in Najaf, Iraq. Khomeini acknowledged his compatibility with the strategic imperatives of the Bush covert team, "we would not collaborate with the Marxists, even to the overthrow of the Shah."

15. The same month, Khomeini's old ally from the failed 1963 coup (that resulted in Khomeini's arrest and major uprising in June 1963 and his subsequent exile to Iraq) General Valliollah Qarani sent his emissary to meet Khomeini in Najaf. Qarani had been a major CIA asset in Iran since the 1953 coup. Seeing another chance to gain power for himself, he advised Khomeini, according to former Iranian President Abol Hassan Bani-sader:

"if you settle for the Shah's departure and don't use anti-American rhetoric, Americans are ready to take him out."

16. In August, the Bush team sent its own point man to meet the exiled Ayatollah in Najaf. Professor Richard Cottam carried excellent credentials. During the 1953 coup, he had been in charge of the CIA's Iran Desk, also, he had been in close contact with Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi in the U.S. since 1975. Curiously, he admitted to Bani-sadr in 1987, that he had not been working for the Carter Administration.

Cottam's visit must have had an impact, because Iran suddenly began to experience a series of mysterious catastrophes:

In Aberdeen, Fundamentalist supporters burned down a theater killing the innocent occupants, blaming it on the SAVAK and the Shah.

There were riots in Isfahan that resulted in martial law.

On August 27, one of Khomeini's rivals among the Shia Islamic faithful outside of Iran, Ayatollah Mosa Sadr mysteriously disppeared. According to an intelligence source he was killed and buried in Libya.

17. By late August, the Shah was totally confused. U.S. Ambassador Sullivan recorded the Shah's pleadings over the outbreak of violence:

"he said the pattern was widespread and that it was like an outbreak of a sudden rash in the country...it gave evidence of sophisticated planning and was not the work of spontaneous oppositionists...the Shah presented that it was the work of foreign intrigue...this intrigue went beyond the capabilities of the Soviet KGB and must, therefore, also involve British and American CIA. The Shah went on to ask 'Why was the CIA suddenly turning against him? What had he done to deserve this sort of action from the United States?"

18. September 8, the Shah's army gunned down hundreds of demonstrators in Teheran in what became known as the "Jaleh Square Massacre".

19. On September 9, President Carter phoned the Shah to confirm his support for the Shah, a fact that enraged the Iranian population.

20. A few days later, Carter's National Security aide, Gary Sick, received a call from Richard Cottam, requesting a discrete meeting between him and Khomeini's representative in the U.S., Dr. Yazdi. Sick refused.

21. Khomeini for the first time, publicly called for the Shah's overthrow.

22. In Mid-September, at the height of the revolution, "one of the handful of Khomeini's trusted associates", Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Beheshti, secretly visited the United States among others, he also meet with Yazdi in Texas. Beheshti was an advocate of the eye-for-an-eye school of justice.

23. In early October 1978, the agent for the Bush covert team arranged to force Khomeini out of Iraq.

24. October 3, 1978, Yazdi picked up Khomeini in Iraq and headed for Kuwait. According to Gary Sick, he received an urgent call from Richard Cottam, learning for the first time that Khomeini had been forced out of Iraq. Sick was told that Khomeini and his entourage were stuck in no man's land while attempting to cross the border. Cottam was requesting White House intervention to resolve the issue. Sick respond, "there is nothing we could do".

25. October 6, Khomeini's entourage, having gotten back through Baghdad, popped up in Paris. According to Bani-sadr, "it was Khomeini who insisted on going to Paris instead of Syria or Algeria". Whoever helped Khomeini out of the Kuwaiti border impasse had to have been on good terms with both the French and Saddam Hussein.

26. December 12, Yazdi made a trip to the U.S. to promote Khomeini and his Islamic Republic. Yazdi met secretly with Henry Precht on an unofficial capacity. Precht was the Director of the Iran Desk at the State Department and one of the Bush team's main choke points in the Carter Administration. Later Precht and Yazdi appeared together for televised discussion of Iran. Yazdi assured the American public that Khomeini had not really called for a "torrent of blood", and that the "election would be absolutely free". The Islamic Republic "would enjoy full freedom of speech and the press, including the right to attack Islam.

27. December 28, Cottam visited Khomeini in Paris where he noted that U.S. citizen Dr. Yazdi was the "leading tactician in Khomeini's camp" and apparent "chief of staff". Khomeini was not interested in the Mullahs taking over the government. Also noted that "Khomeini's movement definitely plans to organize a political party to draw on Khomeini's charisma. Cottam thinks such a party would win all Majlis seats."

28. Leaving Paris, Cottam slipped into Teheran, arriving the first week in January 1979, to prepare Khomeini's triumphal return to Iran.

29. January 4, 1979, Carter's secret envoy, General Robert Huyser arrived in Iran. His mission was to prevent the "fall of the Shah". According to Huyser, Alexander Haig, ostensibly a strong Shah supporter-inexplicably, "took violent exception to the whole idea." Huyser recalled that "General Haig never gave me a full explanation of his strong objections." Huyser also revealed that Ambassador Sullivan "had also expressed objections."

Two pro-Shah advocates opposed to the prevention of the Shah's fall.

30. On January 14, President Carter finally "authorized a meeting between Warren Zimmerman and Ibrahim Yazdi. On the same day, Khomeini, in an interview on CBS claimed, "a great part of the army was loyal to him" and that "he will be in effect the strong man of Iran."

31. On January 16, in an exact repeat of the 1953 CIA coup, Bush's covert team ushered the "eccentric and weak" Shah out of Iran.

32. On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini staged his own version of a "triumphal return" in the streets of Teheran.

33. Khomeini moved quickly to establish his authority. On February 5 he named Mehdi Bazargan, a devoted Muslim and anti-communist, interim Prime Minister. Yazdi and Abbas Amir Entezam became Bazargan's deputies, Dr. Sanjabi Foreign Minister, and General Qarani was named military Chief of Staff.

34. On February 11, 1979, in seemingly a bizarre twist, General Qarani asked the Shah's "eyes and ears" General Hossien Fardoust for recommendations to fill the new top posts in Iran's armed forces. Outside of the Chief of SAVAK, all the other recommendations were accepted. Shortly after, General Fardoust became head of SAVAMA, Khomeini's successor to SAVAK.

35. On February 14, 1979, two weeks after Khomeini's return to Iran, the U.S. Embassy in Teheran was seized by Khomeini supporters disguised as leftist guerrillas in an attempt to neutralize the left.

U.S. hostages were seized, but to the chagrin of Khomeini's Fundamentalist, the Iranian coalition government restored order immediately.

Ironically, in the same day in Kabul, Afghanistan, the U.S. Ambassador was also kidnapped by fanatic Islamic Fundamentalists disguised as leftist guerrillas and killed in the gunfight.

36. On February 14, soon after the order was restored at the U.S. Embassy in Teheran, Khomeini's aide Yazdi supplied the Embassy with a group of Iranians for compound security.

Ambassador Sullivan installed armed, and trained this Swat squad lead by SAVAK/CIA agent Mashallah Kahsani, with whom Sullivan developed a close working relationship.

37. By August, pro-Bush CIA official George Cave was visiting Iran to provide intelligence briefings to Khomeini's aides, especially Yazdi and Entezam. These intelligence exchanges continued until October 31, the day Carter fired Bush and the 800 agents.

Then with all the Iranian officials who had restored order in the first Embassy seizure eliminated, the stage was set for what happened four days later.

38. On November 4, 1979, the U.S. Embassy was taken again.

Leading the charge was none other than Ambassador Sullivan's trusted Mashallah Kashani, the Embassy's once and former security chief.

With the evidence and documentation supplied by Mansoor, the alleged October Surprise would not have been necessary. President Carter was the target, in revenge for the Halloween Massacre, the night 800 CIA operatives and George Bush were fired by Carter. The man thrust, however, was to prevent a communist takover of Iran on the Shah's anticpated death."

The manipulation of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979-80, and the role of American political figures in effecting it; the failure of the 'Desert One' hostage rescue attempt of April 1980 and the apparent 'October Surprise' deal to delay the release of the hostages and assure Carter's reelection defeat.

The venerable White House correspondent Helen Thomas, who died in July, was Mark Mondalek’s grandmother’s cousin. He says his interviews in 2011-2012 with Thomas, an Arab-American who resigned under pressure in 2010 because of comments she made about Israeli Jews, were the last she ever gave. At Middle East Monitor.

Some excerpts, focusing on the Israeli influence in American politics, LBJ’s ignoring the USS Liberty attack in an election year, Obama’s taking insults from Netanyahu, Israel trying to get us into an Iran war, etc. Re my headline, I’d note that no foreign country can sustain this degree of influence in our politics for so long, 44 years, without Americans waking up. It’s happening.

Q. The fight against terrorism has taken an interesting turn with regards to its shift toward places like Yemen and Pakistan now, too.

HT: Pakistan is a mess. Pakistanis protected bin Laden. Nobody knew where he was, baloney. They killed him. They should never have killed him.

Q. If they took him alive they could have maybe humanised him within the rule of law.

HT: Right. But they didn’t want him to be humanised, that’s for sure. They killed him. They had no right to do that. Under international law? Just to have these guys come and shoot him? The U.S. has lost its honour. They have no honour. They have no right to go kill people in their own country. They went into a foreign country and killed a man.

Q. What are your thoughts on Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress on May 24, 2011, in which he declared that “Israel will not return to the indefensible lines of 1967?”

HT: He let these people insult us. We were insulted. He was scared. You don’t alienate [the Israelis] when you have an election coming up. He should have stood up for what’s just and said, “Look, I don’t like an aggressor.”

Q. It’s impossible to avoid coming back to the Six-Day War over and over again, isn’t it?

HT: Abba Eban went to the Pentagon a weekend before the Six-Day War started and got the maps for 25 airfields in the whole Arab world and they killed them all, they bombed them all. That’s how dirty the U.S. was. They gave them maps from the Pentagon. The U.S. has been rotten. I’m sorry. It’s been rotten.

Q. Then in the aftermath of the war-

HT: Well, the U.S. was helping the Israelis and has helped them with planes, with the money, with everything–with all the intelligence. And then when they bombed the USS Liberty in bright sunlight with the sun shining and there was no mistaking the American flags flying everywhere, they bombed the American intelligence ship. They killed 34 people and one sailor finally got to a phone to SOS the American fleets just barely nearby, they were coming to the rescue, and LBJ [Lyndon B. Johnson] called them off, called off a rescue for the people on the Liberty. He was running for election.

Q. What did they have to gain from that?

HT: LBJ thought he had a lot to cosy up to with the Israelis.

Q. But what did the Israelis get out of it then?

HT: Oh, they could wipe out an intelligence ship. Information. We had it all. We damn well knew what was happening in the Middle East. We betrayed ourselves. We betrayed every Arab. We allowed the Israelis to win that war and it was so rotten. And they killed our own people. People who are survivors of the Liberty are still damned mad. LBJ called off any rescue and the ships had to go back because he wanted to win an election and he wanted the Israelis to be on his side. He betrayed the world. He betrayed the U.S., in my opinion. He betrayed his own people. He saw his own people being killed–Americans being killed–and the Israelis were killing us. There was no mistake. It was bright sunlight, American flags flying.

Q. What do you think about the fear that the Arabs will lose interest in the Palestinian cause?

HT: They don’t have many people standing up for the Palestinians. People don’t understand their plight. The Arabs haven’t done enough for them. They don’t fight, long as they’re comfortable. But the cause is great and they’re very righteous. The Jews have no right to come from nowhere and say, “This is my home, God gave it to me.” Rabin said, “Where’s the deed?”…

Q. When is the next…

HT: Invasion? Iran. They’ll bomb Iran as soon as it gets the bomb.

Q. Does it matter if a Republican or a Democrat is in office?

HT: No. The Israelis have the influence over both parties. They put their money in both parties.

Q. Talk from Israel on a “pre-emptive” strike on Iran continues on unabated, also. Oh, yeah, they’re still building up, aren’t they? But the thing is, the U.S. has never told them to shut up. Get the hell out of it. Well, I hope that they don’t win. I hope that the Israelis don’t get us into this war.

Mondalek is a Detroit-area writer and contributing author at Boiling Frogs Post and is working on a book about the life of Helen Thomas. Here he is on Twitter.

Reaffirming the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,

Reaffirming the human rights and fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and relevant international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic,Social and Cultural rights,

Reaffirming also the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action,

Noting that the exercise of human rights, in particular the right to privacy on the Internet, is an issue of increasing interest and importance as the rapid pace of technological developmentenables individuals in all regions to use new information and communications technologies [A/HRC/RES/20/8], and at the same time enhances the capacity of Governments, companies and individuals for surveillance, decryption and mass data collection, which may severely intrudewith a person’s right to privacy,

Welcoming the report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression submitted to the Human Rights Council at its twenty third session, on the implications of the surveillance of private communications and the indiscriminate interception of the personal data of citizens on the exercise of the human right to privacy,

Reaffirming the human right of individuals to privacy and not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, and the right to enjoy protection of the law against such interferences and attacks [new, based on article 17 of theICCPR] , and recognizing that the exercise of the right to privacy is an essential requirement for the realization of the right to freedom of expression and to hold opinions without interference, and one of the foundations of a democratic society [new, based on the report A/HRC/23/40 (para24) of the Special Rapporteur],

Noting that while concerns about national security and criminal activity may justify the gathering and protection of certain sensitive information, States must ensure full compliance with international human rights [statement of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, NaviPillay, on September 20th, 2013],

Emphasizing that illegal surveillance of private communications and the indiscriminate interception of personal data of citizens constitutes a highly intrusive act that violates the rights to freedom of expression and privacy and threatens the foundations of a democratic society [new,based on the report A/HRC/23/40 (para 81) of the Special Rapporteur],

Deeply concerned at human rights violations and abuses that may result from the conduct of extra-territorial surveillance or interception of communications in foreign jurisdictions [new,based on the report A/HRC/23/40 (para 87) of the Special Rapporteur],

Recalling that States must ensure that measures taken to counter terrorism comply with international law, in particular international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law [A/HRC/RES/19/19, OP1],

Stressing also the importance of the full respect for the freedom to seek, receive and impart information, including the fundamental importance of access to information and democratic participation [PP6 of A/HRC/RES/12/16, Freedom of opinion and expression],

1. Reaffirms the rights contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, inparticular the right to privacy and not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence, and the right to enjoy protection of the law against such interference or attacks, in accordance with article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [new] ;

2. Recognizes the global and open nature of the Internet as a driving force in acceleratingprogress towards development in its various forms [OP2 of A/HRC/RES/20/8] ;

3. Affirms that the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular the right to privacy, including in the context of the surveillance of communications [based onOP1 of A/HRC/RES/20/8] ;

4. Calls upon all States :

(a) To respect and ensure the respect for the rights referred to in paragraph 1 above [new, based on OP4a) of A/HRC/RES/12/16] ;

(b) To take measures to put an end to violations of these rights and to create the conditions to prevent such violations, including by ensuring that relevant national legislation complies with their international human rights obligations and is effectively implemented [new, based onOP4b) of A/HRC/RES/12/16] ;

(c) To review their procedures, practices and legislation regarding the extra-territorial surveillance of private communications and interception of personal data of citizens in foreign jurisdictions with a view towards upholding the right to privacy and ensuring the full and effective implementation of all their obligations under international human rights law [based on the reportA/HRC/23/40 (paras 64 and 83) of the Special Rapporteur] ;

(d) To establish independent oversight mechanisms capable to ensure transparency and accountability of State surveillance of communications [based on the report A/HRC/23/40 (para93) of the Special Rapporteur] ;

5. Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to present an interim report on the issue of human rights and indiscriminate surveillance, including on extra-territorial surveillance, to the General Assembly at its sixty-ninth session, and a final report at its seventieth session, with views and recommendations, to be considered by Member States, with the purpose of identifying and clarifying principles, standards and best practices on the implications for human rights of indiscriminate surveillance [new] ;

6. Decides to examine the question on a priority basis at its sixty-ninth session, under the sub-item entitled "Human rights questions, including alternative approaches for improving the effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms" of the item entitled "Promotion and protection of human rights" [new] ."

Monday, 28 October 2013

Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week's scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B'nai Brith.

A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat. It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances. But as we've learned in the intelligence community, we had something called -- and we have James Woolsey here to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles. The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search.

The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one.

There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least.

Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops. Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves.

So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations. It's real, and that's the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that's why this is so important.

They had different ways of achieving this, but their power and authority came from the optimistic visions they offered to their people.

Those dreams failed.

And today, people have lost faith in ideologies.

Increasingly, politicians are seen simply as managers of public life.

But now, they have discovered a new role that restores their power and authority.

Instead of delivering dreams, politicians now promise to protect us - from nightmares.

They say that they will rescue us from dreadful dangers that we cannot see and do not understand.

And the greatest danger of all is international terrorism.

A powerful and sinister network, with sleeper cells in countries across the world.

A threat that needs to be fought by a war on terror.

But much of this threat is a fantasy, which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians.

It’s a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media.

This is a series of films about how and why that fantasy was created, and who it benefits.

At the heart of the story are two groups: the American neoconservatives, and the radical Islamists.

Both were idealists who were born out of the failure of the liberal dream to build a better world.

And both had a very similar explanation for what caused that failure.

These two groups have changed the world, but not in the way that either intended.

Together, they created today’s nightmare vision of a secret, organized evil that threatens the world.

A fantasy that politicians then found restored their power and authority in a disillusioned age.

And those with the darkest fears, became the most powerful."

"He’s a marvelous man, and one of my favorite filmmakers. I think that “The Power of Nightmares” is the single best piece of documentary television I have ever seen."

Alan Moore on Adam Curtis and The Power of Nightmares

"Something extraordinary has happened to American TV since September 11. A head of the leading networks who had better remain nameless said to me that there was no way they could show it. He said, 'Who are you to say this?' and then he added, 'We would get slaughtered if we put this out.' When I was in New York I took a DVD to the head of documentaries at HBO. I still haven't heard from him." "

And to do this, they were going to do to Bill Clinton what they had done to the Soviet Union.

They would transform The President of the United States into a fantasy Enemy -

an image of evil that would make people realise the truth of the Liberal corruption of America...

"Mentioning the name of Clinton provokes disgust and revulsion; the President has a heart that knows no words. A heart that kills hundreds of children, definitely knows no words. Our people in Arabia will send us messages with our words, because he does not understand words. If there is a message that I may send through you, I address the mothers of the American troops - to these mothers I say, 'If they are concerned for their sons, then let them object to the US Government's policy'"

The Power of Nightmares. The Century of the Self. Pandora’s Box. All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace. If you’re familiar with the alternative media, you’ve doubtless come across references to the documentary work of Adam Curtis. But besides the well-known examples of brilliance within Curtis’ work is a deeply doctrinaire strain that seeks to normalize mainstream history and convince us that the driving ideologies of the political elite are exactly what they say they are.

Join us today on The Corbett Report as we deconstruct Curtis’ documentaries and look for the deeper meaning behind the globalist ideology.